Yo, brotha, press Down-Down- A-B-Left-A-Right-A-B!

Move to the left of screen and press the book and you will be the best there is, the best there was, and the best there'll ever be!

Press restart, you ham & egger!

Interesting podcast interview with NWA Vice President Dave Lagana, who directs and edits the Ten Pounds of Gold series and the NWA Powerrr show.



This is after the first episode appeared and the day the second was set to premiere. Lots of behind-the-scenes, the thinking process, the intent, and a general sense why it is succeeding. He talks about recapturing the emotion and excitement you felt when you first saw pro wrestling or that first performer captured your imagination. It mentions the reality, that they cannot financially sustain this with just Youtube; but, they have had conversations about partnerships with other groups, including the WWE. They have partnered with ROH and pulled apart tpo kind of reset; but, with an open door to return. So, the future could be that Japanese super card programming, with reps from multiple promotions, or title vs title matches. We could see something like a World Series or Super Bowl type thing, if this really takes off. I could see them working with AEW, given the relationships established through ROH and with All In.

Well, the future of the WWE is Triple H and Stephanie.  Trips has experience on the indie scene and at a rival promotion that did things differently (sadly, in their lesser years).  NXT has shown that he is willing to take a page from the past and that he has a passion for that other material and history.  He is credited with getting Bruno to accept the offer to be inducted into the Hall of Fame and come to a peace agreement with Vince.  So, I think he could relate to what the NWA is doing and Billy Corgan specifically.  Also, one asset the NWA has, that other promotions do not, is that Billy Corgan is a mainstream celebrity and the WWE has always sought that cache, from Cindy Lauper, to William Perry, to Lawrence Taylor, to Mike Tyson, Mickey Rourke, the the GLOW cast.  Billy Corgan has a big fanbase and a mainstream name, which turned a lot of eyes to the NWA.  His passion and his relationships gave those eyes something worth seeing.  So, I wouldn't be surprised if he could really make things happen that would have never occurred under corporate, Monday Night Wars wrestling.

Historically, there is a precedent, in Japan.  In the beginning, there was the Japanese Wrestling Association, with star Rikidozan, who ran things.  They were backed by the major tv network.  He became a national hero through pro wrestling, after a decent sumo career.  Battles with Lou Thesz, the Destroyer and Freddie Blassie made him a legend.  He developed a pair of proteges; ex-baseball player Shoei Baba and ex-track athlete Kanji Inoki.  Baba became Giant Baba, the next generation star, behind Rikidozan, while Inoki became Antonio Inoki, Baba's tag partner and second (which itched at Inoki's craw)/  Rikidozan is stabbed by a yakuza and dies of blood poisoning and the JWA is rocked by scandal.  They regroup with Baba as the star.  Inoki tries to break away to help start a new rival, which fails, and comes back.  He eventually finds backers.  The JWA splits into All Japan Wrestling, with Baba as the star and shareholder, with a tv backing, and New Japan Pro Wrestling, with Inoki the star and promoter, with rival tv backing.  meanwhile, there was a second promotion, in the IWE, which had relationships in Mexico, Canada and the AWA. Baba retained the JWA's affiliation with the NWA.  Inoki formed alliances with the WWWF and some NWA promoters.  They spend their time as rivals, working separately.  There are talent swaps, which were negotiated, then in the 80s, there were some surprise changes.  New promotions, like the various versions of the UWF started, and some stars went off to headline other groups (like Tenryu, who headed Super World Sports, then WAR).  In the 90s, the Japanese promotions began to cross promote super cards, at places liek the Tokyo Dome and some of the baseball stadiums.  Each put on its biggest stars.  There were even reps from the IWA and FMW, who did garbage wrestling (which was hot, then).  Then, they started to have matches across company lines, mixing an All-Japan wrestler against a New Japan wrestler.  Then, Baba died and his company went into turmoil.  The majority left and founded Pro Wrestling Noah.  Great Muta crossed over to become a star and head of All-Japan.  He held both the IWGP and Triple Crown titles.  New Japan brokered the J-Crown tournament (though with mostly defunct belts, of ones that had been pushed down the card), with involvement from New Japan, WAR, Michinoku Pro, and some indies and Mexico (for the NWA and WWA belts, though not with their wrestlers who were not already working in New Japan).

There is a lot of possibility out there.  nothing may come of it and the NWA may be building on its own; but, I do suspect they will partner with other groups; maybe the WWE, maybe AEW, maybe ROH or Impact (that is probably a bit less likely, given the legal history there; but, never say never, in wrestling). The NWA could be a neutral umbrella for AEW and the WWE to cooperate, while still competing.

Before Vince Jr was in control. Vince Sr was an NWA member.  He took part in title vs title matches (Backlund vs Flair, in Atlanta, Harley vs Superstar Graham) and the NWA and AWA cooperated and had a few (Flair vs Martel, Bockwinkel vs Race) and co-promoted Pro Wrestling USA, before egos and dirty dealing made it collapse into pretty much another AWA show.  If you watch the Ed Asner film, The Wrestler, you see them try to book a Super Bowl show, with WWWF, vs NWA vs AWA, showing NWA World Champion Dory Funk Jr and WWWF Champion Pedro Morales, plus promoters Vince Sr, Frank Dusek (an AWA promoter), Sam Muchnick, and Eddie Graham (Florida NWA) and Verne as AWA champion Mike Bulllard (surprise his ego let it be a fictional name, since everyone else was using their "real" name.

I rewatched Rob Van Dam VS Jerry Lynn from Hardcore Heaven '99, but with alternate commentary by RVD and Michael Cole.

Interesting fact: RVD mentioned how the ECW rings were bigger than WWF rings. I thought they looked bigger!

Ahem! ... brother!

I like sports where there's ONE world title/world champion.

I like football. There's the FIFA World Cup, held every four years. Great footballing nations like Brazil have won it more than once. It would seem odd if we suddenly had 3 breakaway organisations from FIFA - and there were 3 "World Cup" events. How do you even decide which is the most prestigious?

Wrestling may be looked down on by some, but it can be nice to take it semi-seriously. As discussed here previously, I couldn't believe it, in 1993/94, that we had the unwieldy-sounding WCW International World Heavyweight Championship in addition to the WCW World Heavyweight Championship and WCW United States Championship. Talk about redundancy. The likes of Rick Rude brought prestige to the WCW International World Heavyweight Championship (he brought prestige to every title he held), but it didn't feel right.

ECW certainly filled a need back in the day, and it's no exaggeration to talk about how influential they were on the WWF and WCW.

The WWF will engage in revisionist history at times. But the truth is that while ECW was soaring higher and higher, the WWF had the likes of T.L. Hopper, The Goon and Who? I'm not criticising the people who performed those roles, but the WWF was behind the curve circa 1994-1996. If not for competition from the likes of WCW and ECW, would we have even had Attitude?